February 7, 2012

The Crafter's Guide To Taking Great Photos

I loved having at look at this book, I think these days with the rise of blogs and places like Flickr, photography is a key part to embroidery, after all, you've worked so hard on your piece of embroidery, you're going to want it to look its best when you show it off to the rest of virtual world! So this book comes in very useful for doing such a thing.

The book opens with a chapter on camera basics, something very useful, if like me, you've spent most of your life with a point and shoot (or at least just sticking to the point and shoot function of your camera, which at least technically could do so much more). It then goes on to how to set up your photo, with information from choosing the right background to choosing the right props.

The book then goes on to the section I really like, as you see one of the things that has in the past put me off making more of an effort with my photos, is the thought that I would need lots of extras, and expensive kits to do it properly, however this is a photography book for crafters, so of course we can make the kit ourselves! There are instructions on everything from making your own light tent out of a cardboard box, a sheet of white paper and some tracing paper to making a tripod with a water bottle (not recommended for larger cameras).

The next section of the book is divided into chapters for various different types of crafts, with sections on planning, composition, common problems and interviews with practitioners who photograph that particular craft type. There is a chapter entitled knitting & needlecraft but it's much more concentrated on knitting rather than anything else you could do with a needle, however there are still lots of useful hints in that chapter that could be applied to embroidery. There is also useful information that could be applied to embroidery in the fashion & fabrics, art and home accessories chapters.

The final section of the book tackles photo editing and what to do with your photo once you have taken and edited it.

I think this book would be useful for a wide range of crafters; from people uploading their finished pieces to Flickr or blogs for fun to small business owners looking to improve their product shots. The book itself is beautiful and inspiring, crammed full of beautiful product shots from crafters already out there taking beautiful photos.

Hi, I'm Jo - I feature new embroidery patterns Sundays on Feeling Stitchy. I also post on our Twitter and Pinterest.

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